The 15 min. adventuring day... does 4e solve it?

[Doug McCrae]

If your adventures feature only one or two combat encounters you may never have seen the 15 min day. I ran more typical multi-encounter dungeons and saw it a heck of a lot. In fact in an underwater dungeon, where the party druid was expending a huge number of his slots on environment specific buffs, the party retreated after ONE fight. I've also experienced PCs literally running from encounter to encounter in several campaigns to get as much use as possible out of the min/level buffs. 3.x is all about the buffs. If you're buffed you win, if you're not you lose.

Now you may say the DM ought to send a revenge squad after the party if they 'cheat' by going to bed early. Often this isn't possible. Many dungeons, tombs and the like, don't have intelligent defenders. Or the monsters may be unable to track, very few have the Track feat after all. Or the PCs may employ magical means to make tracking impossible such as rope trick or dimension door. And from level 9 onwards they can just teleport back to town anyway.

 

[Fenes]

Now you may say the DM ought to send a revenge squad after the party if they 'cheat' by going to bed early. Often this isn't possible. Many dungeons, tombs and the like, don't have intelligent defenders. Or the monsters may be unable to track, very few have the Track feat after all. Or the PCs may employ magical means to make tracking impossible such as rope trick or dimension door. And from level 9 onwards they can just teleport back to town anyway.

Most of my enemies wouldn't be set up to allow "piecemeal" fights. I mostly use intelligent human(oid)s as foes, and those do not tend to wait in their rooms until it's their turns when the front gate gets attacked.

And after a retreat of the PCs, they'd reoccupy the dungeon/castle defense, bring reinforcements, lay new traps, and so on.

So, if my PCs retreat they have to restart the attack.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If one wanted to remove the 15 minute adventuring day entirely, one just has to create a mechanic to recharge daily powers and healing surges without resting. Maybe I'll post some house rule ideas on that in some time. The easiest way is of course just removing all daily powers and replacing them with encounter powers, and give unlimited healing surges. Depending on how much you care about the chances of "gain <insert arbritary number> levels in one day" scenarios, this might actually not be a problem.

Yeah, it's an easy houserule.

1) Hit points become an encounter resource, not daily. They all regenerate after a short rest, with the cap on healing surges per day removed.
2) Daily powers also become a per encounter resource. I would suggest one use every two encounters.

 

[Dave Turner]

This really won't help, since if the party want to rest, they'll hole up for as long as is necessary. And if the DM discourages this by throwing additional encounters at them, that will just delay them getting back to the 'real' adventure even longer. - in reference to the rule that PCs cannot gain the benefits of an extended rest more than once in any 12-hour period

I understand what you're getting at here, but it's a trivial point that doesn't do much for your position. It boils down to "No rule in the game will help if the players decide that they're going to stop playing the game." This is a failing of any game, whether it's D&D 4e or backgammon. Taken on its merits, the rule you're dismissing does help frustrate the 15-minute adventuring day, as the OP sets it out.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Most of my enemies wouldn't be set up to allow "piecemeal" fights. I mostly use intelligent human(oid)s as foes, and those do not tend to wait in their rooms until it's their turns when the front gate gets attacked.

I've tried that once myself - essentially the whole complex is one giant encounter. Problem is, it no longer feels like a dungeon. One might even say it doesn't feel like D&D any more. An essential feature of the dungeon is the room/monster connection, wandering monsters being an exception. Room X contains monster(s) Y. Map and room key. Yes, it's completely implausible, many features of dungeons are. In a complex controlled by a single organisation there would be alarm systems that alert the entire population, and they would attack en masse.

But y'know, D&D is pretty f---ing stupid. Always has been.

 

[Dave Turner]

No. Any system with recharging powers mechanically favors resting to maximize effectiveness, IMO.

joe b.

This isn't true of any game which determines effectiveness in part on non-mechanical terms. It might be mechanically advantageous to wait 12-18 hours to fully recharge your powers for maximum effectiveness, but not if the cost of your delay is the destruction of the village you were supposed to protect while you were idle. Your delay was not the most effective way to save the village.

 

[Gort]

This isn't true of any game which determines effectiveness in part on non-mechanical terms. It might be mechanically advantageous to wait 12-18 hours to fully recharge your powers for maximum effectiveness, but not if the cost of your delay is the destruction of the village you were supposed to protect while you were idle. Your delay was not the most effective way to save the village.

Which is in agreement with what I said in the second post of the thread:

Unless the GM puts in a time-limit for each adventure, there isn't anything to stop a party that wants to rest for 24 hours after each encounter to get their dailies back from doing so.

Which is the exact same position we were in with 3rd ed. So no, 4e has not solved this problem.

I also disagree with your implication that a party that blows all its dailies every fight and then rests to get them back is "deciding to stop playing the game". They are playing the game, they're just taking their time about it to ensure that they are maximally effective in each encounter. And in the absence of a good reason to take their time about it, why is that a bad tactic?

 

[renau1g]

I also disagree with your implication that a party that blows all its dailies every fight and then rests to get them back is "deciding to stop playing the game". They are playing the game, they're just taking their time about it to ensure that they are maximally effective in each encounter. And in the absence of a good reason to take their time about it, why is that a bad tactic?

Well... if a party is spending close to month or more clearing out a dungeon then they're certainly going to earn less during their adventuring careers... at least by my reckonin'. Not a bad tactical decision, but then neither is hiring a legion of soldiers to accompany the PC's while they adventure. Does it make a ton of sense? Not really, but is it better tactically to establish a wall of fodder that will allow the PC's to rain death on their enemies... yes.

 

[The Green Adam]

I was actually gonna ask what the heck a "15 minute adventuring day" was but I think I've reasoned it out after reading the various posts. My next question is..."so people really experience this?"

What do you do on an epic quest where your battling through hordes of enemies, facing off against mighty evil henchmen, deadly generals and then the final big baddy all in a day's work?

I guess that's why I prefer game systems that enable my players to be cool when they need and want to be, not based on some arbitrary, pre-programmed time.

 

[Vocenoctum]

- Elric of Melnibone didn't start fighting the Dukes of Hell with a lot of fire and fury, but then after a couple of hours decide that he was plumb tuckered out and maybe he should go grab some shut-eye before continuing the epic battle.

Actually, Elric's fatigue/ weakness was an important part of such stories. I'm sure if you gave players a mechanic by which they regained powers by slaying foes, they would go longer.

Until then, Adventuring Parties are the equivalent of swat teams. You raid the house (dungeon), kicking in doors as rapidly as possible to overwhelm the enemy and defeat them.

You then pull back to the station (inn) and rearm & rest, to go over what was found and decide your next step.

The "problem" with the "15 minute adventuring day" is just a pacing problem. A DM determines the opposition and thus determines the pacing. If you want the players to last for an 8 hour encounter of war, then you break it up into skirmishes, make sure that the expendables are effective, and you make sure the players understand what you expect of them.